The sport fan inside me just noticed that, although I have put sports related pieces on this blog, little has been an opinion piece (outside of the NFL Power Rankings back in May). So to get that genre down, I decided to talk NFL fans and the way that they always, ALWAYS, debate a topic and how diluted and lame it usually is. I'm not bitter, guys, I'm just speaking from the heart.
I'm a fan. I'm a big Philadelphia fan, in fact. I stay loyal to the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers. Throw in University of Delaware (alum), Villanova - for good basketball, Penn State - for some football and Jo Pa sound bites, and you have what is my entire slate of teams that I root for. Typically, I'm not one to judge someone else. I don't care who you root for them, or why you root for them, but that doesn't mean I can't have a certain feeling about it. Take, for example, the large fan bases that have grown over the past decade in the New England area. There are plenty of legit New England fans, I'm good friends with some of them. They have been loyal transplanted fan to their teams for their entire life. Great. Then there are others, those who have been Patriot fans since they won the Super Bowl a few years back. Banwagoners...frontrunners, if you will. But it doesn't end in Boston, no, this spread of the 28 Days Later-esque disease spreads through many other fan bases. The Steelers are known for having a large amount of fans, but I ask how that is possible without the majority of those being fair weather fans? How can a person who's never been outside of California ever like the Steelers? For that matter, how can someone from Jersey be a die hard Laker fan? A Colorado New York Giants fan? Seems odd...but I'm not here to rant about fair weather fans, no, I'll let ESPN.com's Page 2 write a few filler articles on that. I got bigger fish to fry.
I'm talkin' about the way fans like this perceive...me. Now, I don't care what you think. I'll be more than willing to give you a snowball chuckin', d-cell tossin', beer chuggin', cheese steakin' beat down show anytime...because, let's face it, the paradigm of the city of Philadelphia is so wide spread, it'll never change. Don't get me wrong, I'm just another miserable, bitter, fan who wants my teams to win so badly I lower myself to doing and saying asinine things. But...what die hard fan wouldn't? I digress...earlier this week, ESPN released their 2nd edition of the NFL Power Rankings: Training Camp edition. Their last one was released in May...I guess their writers were getting bored sitting around, so they decided to update a list after no games have been played. Well substantiated. Seeing some of the reactions to the rankings, I can only come to this conclusion: the NFL Live syndrome* has spread further than even I could have participated.
*NFL Live syndrome is when fans begin talking in boring rhetoric about a team. It's not really an analysis, but more of a basic observation that, if even accurate, doesn't do any good because it's something that even John Madden could explain. You know...like all the analysts on NFL Live. Get it?
My main beef is with a few different issues, first it's this basis that I can't give input because my Eagles have never won a Super Bowl, even though most other fans just spout off the same boring bull crap that I'm so tired of hearing from ESPN's crack NFL voices that it's not even funny. I'm referring to a few fans who think their team is God's gift to the NFL because, "Huh...huh....McNoob totally cubed it in the Super Bowl." I'll be the first one to make a McNabb-vomit joke, but this odd detraction from my voice because of my fandom is beyond me. I don't get it, even an honest, well described opinion of something is taken as crap. In the most honest of opinions, I don't think Eli Manning is a good QB. He doesn't really do anything particularly well; he doesn't have a strong arm, his accuracy leaves a lot to be desired, and while his 2007 post-season run was impressive, it's the only stretch in his tenure as a Giant that was worth a damn. He gets so much credit for that play in the Super Bowl when, in reality, he got lucky. He really just did what he always does, chuck it up in the air and pray. The real dap should go to Daivd Tyree, he outplayed the defender for the ball, timed his jump perfectly, and held on for dear life.
What's my point? Well, too many people have become this mindless slave to these weird substantiated ideas that are much too basic. For example, (to prove my anti-bias, I am a conservative) when talking to a conservative republican about the economy, I find that they generally will read off rhetoric and bland ideas for how the economy should be run, as if this were a macroeconomics class. When in reality, the economy is much more that just what you read in a text book; there has to be a critical analysis of it. Same thing goes for most fans. I'm not trying to put myself on a high horse, by any means, but what I am trying to say is that there is a place for the basic ideas of how football teams should be made up, and then there is the next step and that is actually piecing together how the team works. Let's take the Vikings, just to put up an example. Right off the bat someone would say, "Well they have no QBs, but they got a great RB in Adrian Peterson and have a really good defense." Yes, that is true, but is it the whole story? Of course not. Forget about Favre...he's a hack anyway, we're working with what the Vikes got now. Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels are, presumably, the two QBs that are competing for the starter spot. I'll be the first to tell you these guys aren't the greatest signal callers to ever play the game, but does that make them useless? Hardly. They don't have to be Pro-Bowl caliber guys to be successful in an offense that is built around the running game. Not to mention with a defense as good as theirs behind them. Consider this my official segway into my next rambling point...
Just because a player is not on the God-like level (Brady, Manning, etc.) doesn't make them a commodity and a necessity to their team. When ranking QBs, and ESPN is COMPLETELY guilty of this too, we always say "There's Manning, Brady, then everyone else." I realize there is no argument I can put together that would actually convince, nor be plausible, to argue that Manning and Brady are not the top 2 QBs in the league. I concede to that. However, this rhetorical line has been drowned out so many times that it really blands 30 talented players together. McNabb has never won a Super Bowl, his numbers aren't as good as either of those two guys, does that make him a slouch? No! He has been a consistently good for 10 years, and even made WRs by the names of Todd Pinkston, James Thrash, Freddie Mitchell known to the general public. He is the reason the offense clicks. If you think that that example might be a bit bias, fine, but then take Redskins' QB Jason Campbell. ESPN's talking heads will pound into your head the same boring nonsense about him not yet proving his ability. I disagree. What's more important than a QB who lights it up, is a QB who doesn't make mistakes and Campbell is one of those guys. His late struggles last year were more of a depiction of the poorly run offense on Jim Zorn's part, not Campbell's. In fact, the 'Skins were smart for not benching him for Cutler because I believe he is a better QB than Jay Cutler. Cutler has this aura about him that he has seemed to prove something...like what? Completely collapsing in the last month of the season? A pedestrian 18 interceptions? His numbers, decision making, and attitude don't impress me. But Jason Campbell, on the other hand, does not have such large amount of interceptions because, although he may not be as accurate as Jay Cutler, he is smarter. Campbell knows what throws he can't make and stays away from them. It takes better coaching and game planning to suit what he can do, because a big guy like that who has mobility, and a good deep ball has to be accommodated. I don't mean to come off as some non-conformist hippie, but just because ESPN spouts off the same crap every day, doesn't make it true.
This was most certainly a rant, and one that I'm not even sure had an actual point. Nor do I care. Take it for what it's worth...and if it's worth nothing, that's fine by me. I guess my main idea is, don't just take the plain answer as the whole story. In any situation, dig a little bit deeper. This is getting too philosophical...I need a beer.
No comments:
Post a Comment